Federal officials are bracing for an increase in efforts by foreign adversaries to undermine the U.S. elections but said they had not seen any national-level threats so far on Election Day.
On Monday night, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the F.B.I. and intelligence agencies issued an unusual warning that adversaries, led by Russia, were conducting additional influence operations.
On Tuesday, Cait Conley, a senior official with the cybersecurity agency, said she expected an increase in the “scope and scale” of the influence efforts.
“Adversaries have taken lessons learned from previous cycles to understand which narratives would be most effective,” she said.
Federal officials have tried to quickly call out foreign influence campaigns and singled out Russian efforts to spread false information about destroyed ballots in Pennsylvania, illegal voting in Georgia and voter fraud in Arizona.
Ms. Conley, during the first of several election status calls scheduled for Tuesday, said the foreign influence efforts had been focused on swing states. Court documents released this fall detailed a Russian plan that concentrated on swing states in order to boost the chances of former President Donald J. Trump.
While Russia favors Mr. Trump, Iran has been supportive of Vice President Kamala Harris, according to intelligence officials. An American official said on Tuesday that U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies had tracked Iranian activity in recent days but that Iran had been less active than Russia.
Ms. Conley said that based on past campaigns, federal officials were watching for Iranian activity on Election Day and the days after the vote.
“We remain vigilant to see Iranian activity targeting this election cycle,” she said. “Learning from when they conducted their influence activities in the 2020 cycle, we understand that this window of time is where they’ve historically targeted.”
Ms. Conley emphasized that foreign adversaries had little ability to change votes without being detected. The threats involve false narratives that the election was compromised, she said, not cyberattacks on local voting infrastructure like voting machines.
“Our election infrastructure has never been more secure and the election infrastructure community has never been better prepared to deliver safe, secure, free and fair elections,” she said.
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